Mark Cuban came out with his explanation as to why he had the Dallas Mavericks take away the credentials permitting two ESPN.com reporters from covering the Mavs’ games this year.

As is so often the case with the Mavs’ billionaire owner, the answer was a little off the wall.

Writing in an email to the Associated Press, Cuban said he was essentially making a protest vote to ESPN about the company’s decision to move Tim MacMahon from the Mavericks’ beat full time and have him cover the NBA as a whole. MacMahon and another veteran NBA scribe, Marc Stein, were blocked by the Mavericks over the weekend.

Cuban said the move of MacMahon off the beat is indicative of a bigger picture issue in which media outlets use computers to generate automated game reports.

“Maybe I will be wrong, but I see a direct path from the trends in coverage of games we are seeing over the last couple years to the automation of reporting on games and the curation of related content,” Cuban wrote. “This isn’t a knock on wire services or their reporters. They are valued and valuable in sports coverage.”

He may well have a point. It’s just not clear that he needed to express it by keeping two veteran reporters from doing their jobs.